Statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein in Opposition to FY 2004 Budget Conference Report

Statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein in Opposition
to FY 2004 Budget Conference Report

April 11, 2003

"At a time when the United States is engaged in a war and will shortly begin a massive reconstruction effort whose costs are still unknown, at a time of growing deficits and rising debt, and at a time of increasing entitlement spending and increasing interest payments to service that debt, it is highly irresponsible for Congress to engage in such unprecedented maneuvering and gamesmanship to try to force through an overlarge, unstimulative and ill-timed tax cut.

The parliamentary maneuvering is unprecedented. A Conference Report is supposed to reconcile differences between the two bodies.

But this Conference Report sets up a mechanism by which two different figures for a tax cut can be considered.

It is a clear effort to make an end run around the Senate rules and procedures by advocates of large and irresponsible tax cuts to avoid a vote they know that they simply can't win.

It makes no sense, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this Conference Report.

When President Bush assumed office in January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected a budget surplus of $5.6 trillion for fiscal years 2002 though 2011. But under this budget resolution, there will be a deficit of $1.95 trillion. That's a $7.6 trillion turnaround in two years.

And for fiscal years 2003 and 2004 alone, deficits will reach $347 billion and $385 billion respectively if this budget resolution is adopted. And this does not include the cost of the war or the reconstruction of Iraq.

This conference report provides for tax cuts of $1.3 trillion over the period 2003-2013. With interest the full cost of this tax cut is $1.6 trillion.

And in an unprecedented move, the amounts of the tax cut that are reconciled are different in the House and Senate.

The reconciliation instructions to both the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committee say that tax cuts up to $550 billion over 11 years can be reported.

A special rule prohibits consideration in the Senate of the reconciliation bill that costs more than $350 billion, but it allows the Senate to consider a reconciliation conference report that costs up to $550 billion. This would establish a precedent that could be used in the future to play all kinds of games with the budget resolution. It is a bad solution to an impasse and should be rejected.

Spending Limits in the Budget Cut into Many Programs

There is also an urgent need to fund many priorities which are not dealt with in this budget, and those needs are not likely to disappear over the next decade.

Those priorities include, among others:

The war in Iraq and the subsequent reconstruction of Iraq, including a 90 billion supplemental appropriations conference report coming to this body shortly.
The President's No Child Left Behind education initiative
Homeland Security
A full prescription drug benefit in Medicare

Many priorities that are important to Californians are either cut or eliminated altogether, most notably funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. If that program is eliminated, the burden of processing and incarcerating criminal aliens will fall entirely on thinly-stretched state law enforcement budgets.

When faced with the choice between supporting a bad budget and no budget at all, I must choose the latter.

I support a budget which faces our fiscal needs head-on, even when an economic downturn forces us to make tough choices, and which resists the temptation to further increase the debt burden on future generations of taxpayers.

This is not that budget. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Budget Conference Report."